


The Dangers of Galvanic Engineering

by AuthorLoremIpsum



Series: Lodger Stories [3]
Category: The Glass Scientists (Webcomic)
Genre: Burns, Gen, idiot gets struck by lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 10:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12296850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorLoremIpsum/pseuds/AuthorLoremIpsum
Summary: The alternate title for this work is: "Fucking Idiot Gets Struck By Lightning." But! Tweedy gets a really cool scar from all of it! Though, not from the lightning strike itself but what happened next.





	The Dangers of Galvanic Engineering

Contrary to popular belief, Mr. Tweedy’s scar was a new addition to his face, and he laughed whenever someone implied it was from some traumatic childhood accident. In reality it was, as he put it, “A perfect example why ordinary people don’t pursue Arcane Sciences and think of them as dangerous.” Because they were incredibly dangerous!

Well, maybe not Doddle or Flowers, but the others certainly!

On the other hand, as dangerous as these sciences were, they were also incredibly useful. For example, electricity generators were few and far between in the only recently industrialized city of London, however, Tweedy knew six ways to make one with scraps and clockwork.

His science was electricity, a study that was already under heavy scrutiny by the modern world and common sciences,  _ however,  _ they didn’t realize all the possibilities it possessed beyond illumination and powering large machines. They also didn’t realize the art that could come from it, had no one noticed the particular hums that certain amperages produced? Controlling this incredible, destructive force of nature that people in the past had blamed on Gods was within the grasp of man, if only they weren’t too afraid to see it!

This electricity, Tweedy’s obsession, and his time at the Society, was how he got his incredibly ravishing scar. (He certainly thought of himself as handsome, despite how the other Lodgers teased) 

He’d been helping Bryson put lightning rods on his balloon, you know, just to make sure if on the off hand the magnificent flying vessel was struck by lightning it’d not only survive the journey but take crucial data Tweedy needed to understand more about lightning itself. It was fascinating to watch a storm from the ground, the theological and diving clashing of earth and sky in a single, blinding flash of energy, but if only he could get closer!

Time and time again, when Bryson was in town with his glorious balloon, Tweedy nearly begged him for a ride in the balloon during the storm.

The answer was always the same.

“Not only would that be likely to kill us both, it’d heavily damage my balloon and likely set it on fire while it crashes into the city.”

Damn, that meant he needed another way to get up there. 

Somehow, just  _ somehow  _ he had to see the interior of a storm, and none of this mild London rain, but a real typhoon. Something that put the houses close to the river at risk of flooding, Tweedy would risk hypothermia in that downpour to get up into that sky. Death be damned, he needed to see it. 

Unfortunately, or well, rather fortunately, a storm like that happened to roll in around midday in the dead middle of summer. When the first rumble of thunder shook the Society, and Tweedy was certain it wasn’t just an explosion, he grabbed a number of implements and ran for the roof. With poles of metal on his back and a notebook clenched between his teeth, he climbed first onto the ordinary roof, then as high as he could get atop one of the many chimneys up there. 

A few quick drills, some tightened screws, and a new lightning rod stood tall and proud from the tallest point of the Society. It was surprisingly sturdy, for simply metal that was free standing, attached only by screws to a single hole in the domed copper roof that covered somebody’s laboratory. (Probably Pennebrygg’s, it smelled like molten metal outside the chimneys)

Tweedy dropped from the lightning rod and ran to take shelter from the sheets of rain beneath the massive telescope that took up a good portion of the roof. It was mostly dry under there, but better than standing in a rainstorm of nearly biblical proportions while waiting for lightning to strike. He was thankful he’d thought to bring his notebook in a leather pouch, for it had remained mostly as he’d run to seek shelter from the storm, and in it he sketched and tweaked and sketched some more.

Rain thundered on the metal roof of this part of the Society, drumming not unlike an engine. Occasionally powerful winds would sweep through, splashing Tweedy and his notebook, threatening to steal his hat into the night, from whence it would never be seen again. After one too many of these gusts, Tweedy gave up and dropped his belongings that the storm continued to endanger down the ladder that he’d climbed up. 

Once again, he hid beneath the telescope, watching the thundering storm with the awe of a man before God. So much power in the storm alone, if there was a god, surely this was his craft. The weather, the lightning, was a work of art, a masterpiece painted on reality and time, fleeting and only visible to those who were mad enough to chase it. The wind, the rain, the lightning, all of it could kill Tweedy if he wasn’t careful, which he wasn’t and many of the other Lodgers could confirm.

And yet he remained, staring at the sky from his mostly dry hiding place, awestruck.

Until a particularly powerful gust caused something on his lightning rod to snap and start bending at an unstable angle. 

The storm had been picking up ferocity too, lightning and thunder flashing in the sky like the heartbeat of some massive, sublime creature, unknowable and untameable. Tweedy stood against the wind, feeling it grab and tug on his clothes as he ran for the lightning rod, an arm shielding his face from the rain. Without hesitation, or fear, he climbed up onto the chimney which the device was mounted on, squarely planting his feet on either side as he attempted to wrestle the rod back into place.

The metal creaked, slowly bending back into shape, fighting wind and rain.

Tweedy happened to glance up at one moment, and his eyes were blinded by brilliant white light. If one could pause a moment in time, one could see the lightning finally reaching for Tweedy’s device, vaguely shaped like a reaching hand as it stretched down from the ether, glowing like a sun.

Fire raced down Tweedy’s arms, through his legs and into the roof beneath his feet. His vision went to stars, his skin went numb and everything rung as he was thrown back from the lightning rod by the pure concussive force of the lightning that struck between his hands. Everything was spinning as he struck the roof, face first, rolled twice and lay there, limp, breathing erratic and raspy, heartbeat racing frantically and erratically. 

The galvanist’s eyes wandered the roof, unfocused as his thoughts swam in his mind, only able to focus on the unbearable burning and stinging numbness in his arms and hands. 

He barely noticed as someone slammed open the hatch onto the roof, and was unconscious by the time they could call for help.

~

Pennebrygg shook the man’s shoulders again, “Tweedy! You need to focus! Come on!”

They were in the room just below the roof where Tweedy had been very clearly struck by lightning. Intricate and complicated burns stemmed from the holes in his black gloves, stretching up his arms like painful ivy. Tweedy’s dark eyes were rolling in their sockets and his head kept bobbing forward, as if in sleep, but Pennebrygg couldn’t shake the feeling that it was worse than that. His hair, already usually wild and dark, stuck up at every angle and had clearly been charred in the lightning strike.

Ito, who’d been dragged from their evening reading to patch up the struck galvanist, shot Pennebrygg a glare from where they stood, attempting to bandage a large cut that ran down the right side of Tweedy’s face. “Don’t shake him, I’m having a hard enough time bandaging this as it is.”

“Why’re you bandagin’ m’ face?” he mumbled, leaning into their hands as they worked. Pennebrygg, despite himself, was immensely relieved to hear his colleague speak.

“You fell and got cut, don’t you remember that?” he asked, looking Tweedy in the eye, searching for some sign of understanding. Tweedy thought hard about it, leaning his head in Ito’s hands as they tied off the bandage, making him look like some sort of fried pirate. “I remember, tryin’a fix the rod an’, and then fire.”

“You got struck by lightning,” Pennebrygg deadpanned, smirking a little. “Just like we all said you would, was it worth it?”

Tweedy thought about it, nearly falling over as Ito let go of his head and turned to pack up their thrown-together-in-two-minutes medpack. He giggled weakly, “Hell yeah it was.”

“You nearly died.”

“He should be dead,” Ito corrected, snapping their case together. “And I’m sure he’ll have a field day trying to study why he isn’t. But don’t let him sleep until he’s clear again.”

“What I gotta babysit??” Pennebrygg asked, sounding mildly insulted.

“It’s that or risking him dying and you already dragged  _ me _ out of bed,” Ito snapped before descending the ladder to below. The automaton engineer sighed heavily, rubbing his exposed eye before looking at Tweedy.

The galvanist was staring at his hands, opening and closing them, flinching as the burns beneath the white cloth stung with a vengeance. He looked up at Pennebrygg, “Did, did I get struck by lightning in the face?”

“No, you fell and hit the roof  _ after _ getting struck,” he answered, offering a gentle hand to lift Tweedy to his shaking feet. 

He could barely stand alone, and it was one hell of a time getting him down the ladder and onto stable ground. The whole time he kept bursting out into little, drunk-like giggles, “Oh Pennebrygg, if you’d have seen it, it was incredible.”

“I’m sure it was,” he would answer, only mildly irritated. To both of their surprise, when they entered the bronze observatory, a small army was worriedly waiting for them.

“We heard something fall on the roof!”

“Tweedy did we get struck by lightning? Did you get any data?”

“What happened up there? Was he hurt?”

The galvanist couldn’t help but laugh aloud, much to the surprise of those gathered. He raised his hands and shook them, all while giggling. “I got struck by lightning ladies and gentlemen! I can cross one more thing off my bucket list!” He dissolved into laughter again and had to lean against the wall as his legs began to give again. The giggling faded, “My God, what a storm out there, absolutely incredible, you should have  _ seen  _ it.”

“Should someone get the doctor?”

“I think he’s at home, but it might be worth it!”

“I don’t need a doctor!” Tweedy declared, standing alone, injured hands on his hips. “I am perfectly fine!”

He felt numbness creep into his legs and collapsed without another sound, face planting on the floor once again in as many minutes, completely unconscious.

In the days to follow, as he healed quickly with the aid of the in-house alchemists, everyone was surprised to see him in such great spirits after what surely must have been a traumatic event. Barely two days after blacking out like that he was on his feet again, trying to get back to work only to be stopped by the more responsible Pennebrygg, who shared his lab. He joked about his accident, about his resulting scars would mark him for greatness among the fantastic minds of history, and it seemed as if he didn’t care that his injury was ultimately the result of him being a total idiot. 

Even when Hyde, master of getting under someone’s skin, tried to make him feel stupid, he continued to laugh at himself.

Because if getting struck by lightning had taught him anything, because it sure as hell didn’t give him much data about lightning, it taught him that one must be able to laugh at their blunders and be willing to take chances.

Most importantly though, that lightning was more gorgeous and more powerful than he’d suspected all along.


End file.
